Two of the first off-grid medicine books I acquired were based on the recommendations of someone somewhere online. I purchased them without really knowing much, other than the fact that I did not have any disaster medicine books and knew I needed something.
A Barefoot Doctor's Manual seemed like a good idea at the time. The Chinese government wanted to train peasants in each village to be able to provide basic medical care, as well as be able to recognize more serious problems that should be handled by a trained physician. It sounded perfect for what I wanted to be able to do for my family in an emergency. At nearly 1,000 pages, it had to be loaded with good information.
And it probably does have valuable information. For someone in China. Nearly half of the book, well over 400 pages, is devoted to Chinese herbs. Herbs are wonderful. But a lot of herbs that are common in China are not so easily located in the US. Many of the treatments are based on an understanding of Oriental medicine. Acupuncture is commonly suggested. I'm not criticizing either of these methods, but I have no understanding and I'm not likely to be able to gain any on this side of the world either. Compounding these issues is the fact that while a very long book, the font is small, 9- or 10-point, and it's a translation, so the wording is sometimes awkward. Most people will be better served spending their money elsewhere.
Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook is a much better use of precious funds. And if you lack the funds, it's available as a free download, though only if you print it chapter-by-chapter, which is a bit of a hassle. Or you can pay $7.95 to download it all at once. I haven't actually used this book much; every time I checked it for a subject, it didn't have much to offer, so I quit looking. But as I was perusing it today so that I could provide readers with a little more information on it, I stumbled upon some pretty important material.
Chapters 19, 21, and 22 stood out in particular because these topics are not well covered in the other books I have and highly recommend. Chapter 19 covers pregnancy and childbirth more thoroughly, including how often the mother should be checked, the schedule, how to determine her weight gain if there is no scale (indeed, ways of improvising scales are suggested in a few places), and managing minor birth defects like extra digits and club feet. Chapter 21 addresses communicable childhood diseases for which most children are currently vaccinated. But what if there comes a time when vaccines are not available? How will those childhood diseases been identified and treated properly? No other off-grid medicine book goes into better detail. And finally, Chapter 22 considers the problems of the elderly, and like it or not, we'll all be there sooner or later.
Those are three chapters everyone should probably print. But how many medical books does a person really need? I'd say most could get two or three and call it good. I personally like having at least three. It sometimes happens that only one of the three will have information on a specific topic like black widow spider bites or typhoid. Some cover a given subject better than others. And sometimes they disagree with one another. In that case having a third or fourth reference is really nice. If I had only this one book, which states that antibiotics should always be administered to an infant under six months of age with an ear infection, and I didn't have any antibiotics for him, I'd be panicking. However, my other three references indicate that the baby in all likelihood will be just fine in a couple of days without antibiotics. So having a few references would be very comforting in a situation like that.
In short, if you don't have any off-grid medicine references, print this one for free. Also print the free Survival and Austere Medicine, 3rd Edition for free. And then add in Armageddon Medicine and/or The Survival Medicine Handbook if you can.
Links to related posts:
Armageddon Medicine book review
Survival and Austere Medicine, 3rd Edition, book review and link for free download
The Survival Medicine Handbook book review
Where There Is No Doctor download
